Steele Unsure
by Neneithel
Summary: After the episode Steele Searching, Laura is taking Steele home to Los Angeles, but she has a confession to make and he has a lot of doubts.


_**Steele Unsure.**_

Laura looked at Steele in the seat beside her. He had barely spoken since leaving London and the wound where he had been impaled on the fence seemed to be causing him considerable discomfort. "Are you okay?" she said.

He glanced at her and smiled unconvincingly. "Fine. You?"

"I didn't get hurt." she said.

"No." he said, looking at the back of the seat in front of him.

The silence clawed back its lost ground. Laura watched his face, more aware of his pain because he tried to hide it. The serenity of his face was obviously fake, an act to stop her from worrying or maybe to prevent her from talking about their separation. She wondered what he had thought about in the time he had been away. He had said he wanted to find out who he was so that he could tell her and she took that to mean he really had wanted to go back to her, but there must have been times when he had thought of cutting his losses and leaving her for good.

Before they left, though, he had spoken as if he wanted to be with her and the fact that he was on this flight confirmed it. She wanted to tell him she loved him, but knew he would see it as a stake he couldn't match and she didn't want him to fold.

"Did you miss LA?" she said, meaning, "Did you miss me?"

"The climate is certainly better." he said.

"You're talking about the weather. You were in England too long."

"Far too long." he said and there was a sadness to his tone that made her want to hug him.

"We missed you." she said.

"Hm." he said.

"Mildred ... " she began.

"Mildred?" he said, sounding disappointed.

"Yes?" said Mildred from behind.

"Nothing." they both said.

"Well, we both worried about you. It was hard, being at the office without you." said Laura, speaking softly and hoping she was saying neither too much nor too little.

"Well, now I'm back."

"Yes." she said.

"I don't quite know how. I don't know what you told Lombard."

"That's not important. He accepted it. That's all that matters."

He turned to look at her and said, "Laura, are you glad I'm coming back? I mean, you needed to think and you thought and then you came after me, but are you sure this is what you want?"

A sudden fear gripped her. "You're not sure you want to be here, are you?"

"I don't want to go all the way back to LA only to find that you're still pondering whether you want me around at all."

"Look, I went to your apartment the night you left. I wanted to tell you I'd changed my mind, but you'd gone. I was wrong to suggest time apart. We can only work out what this is and how we want it to go if we're together and talking."

"Amen to that!" said a quiet voice behind them.

"Mildred, this is a private conversation." said Steele.

"I know." said Mildred, "Is somebody eavesdropping? Just say who and I'll fix 'em."

They smiled ruefully at each other. "If I didn't love that woman so much ... " said Steele.

"Me too." said Laura.

"Where were you, by the way?"

"When?" she said.

"That night, before I left. I tried to call you, Laura, your loft, the office. Where did you go?"

It was the one question she had hoped he would never ask. She couldn't bring herself to lie about it, but she feared he wouldn't find it easy to forgive the truth. To buy time as much as to find out, she said, "Why did you try to call?"

"I needed to ask you things, tell you things, make sure you really wanted me to go. Where were you, Laura?"

"Does it matter?" she said. Even to her own ears, her voice sound too brittle and too nervous.

"It matters that you won't tell me." he said, "Were you with someone?"

She frowned and confessed. "Yes, I was with someone."

"You were?" said Mildred.

"Mildred, stay out of this, please!" said Steele. He looked into Laura's eyes. "I didn't realise that you intended us to see other people."

"It wasn't like that."

"So it was just a friend? Just someone to talk to?" he said.

"Was Felicia?" she said.

He went back to staring at the seat in front. "It wasn't just a friend."

"He wanted to be more."

"Did you?" said Steele.

"I was confused."

"Confused? No, Laura, confusion makes you buy two different types of shampoo. It doesn't make you get involved with two men."

"I wasn't involved with him!"

"Did you sleep with him?" said Steele.

"You didn't!" said Mildred.

"Of course I didn't sleep with him!" said Laura.

"Did you want to?"

She clasped her hands in her lap and closed her eyes. "I'll tell you what happened, but I want you to know that I didn't sleep with him."

"Go on. I'd say I'm all ears, but right now, I'm mostly jealousy." he said.

Laura waited for a while, hoping there would be some way of saying it that wouldn't hurt him. None came to her, so she said quietly, "It was William Westfield."

She was unprepared for the nature of his objection. "The politician? You left me for a politician? I'm unreliable, but you'd go to a professional liar? Or was it that Abigail would like to see you with a senator?"

"He wasn't a liar." said Laura.

"They're all liars!" said Steele, "They say what people want to hear. I'm sure he said all the right things."

"I can't tell you this if you're going to get angry." she said.

"If it were someone better looking than me or more honourable than me ... but he's so bloody ordinary. Was it worth giving up what we had for that?"

"Do you want to hear this or not?" she said.

"No, but I have to." he said.

"Then please, give me a chance to explain."

He sighed. "Fine, explain."

"What we have ... Oh hell, I don't know where to begin. Our relationship was scaring me, because I was beginning to feel there was no way out."

"I didn't know you wanted one." he said.

"Just listen, please!" she said.

He raised his hand in apology and fell silent.

"It wasn't about William Westfield, it was about you. I wanted to know how deep my feelings for you went. I found him attractive ... "

"Not that deep then." said Steele.

"But it was just attraction. He asked me to go away with him and I knew that if I could go, my feelings for you weren't as strong as they seemed."

"You were going away with him?" said Mildred.

"Mildred!" they both said.

"She's right, though." said Steele, "That goes well beyond just seeing someone else."

"It wasn't like that. It was a test."

"Another?"

"Not for you! I knew that if I could go on that flight, what you and I had was ... "

"Irrelevant?" he suggested.

"I wish you'd stop this. I'm trying to explain."

"I'm trying to understand. You were going to sleep with another man to test your feelings for me?"

"I didn't intend to sleep with him. I just wanted to know if I could."

"If I made an excuse like that, you'd go crazy." he said.

"I got off the plane and I went to find you."

"You got as far as the plane?"

"You got as far as England!" she said.

"Yeah," said Mildred, "But he didn't take some bimbo with him."

"I should have lied. I knew I should have lied." said Laura.

"Why him? Why some dull, unattractive politician?"

"I liked him, but mostly he was just there and I was scared and I wanted to see if what I thought I felt for you was real or just the fact that you're everything I want in a man and so attractive that I can be driven to distraction just by seeing you smile. I didn't want to throw it all away if you and I had nothing more than intense mutual desire. If I'd gone through everything for something that would fade away the first time we made love, I wanted to know. You scare me. I'm getting very close to a point of no return and I wanted to be damn sure I know I want to be there."

"You think I'm not scared? You think I didn't look at Felicia and think how simple it would be just to take her in my arms and forget my life in LA?"

"Then you should understand. This fear has been coming between us from the start and we both do stupid things because of it."

"But my life was falling apart and you were in the arms of a bloody politician."

"You say that like it's a crime to be a politician!"

"I'm the criminal, remember?" he said quietly, "He's respectability, and that's what you saw in him. He isn't me."

"It's you I want."

"No, it's not. You want a man you can be proud of, not one whose origins you have to hide and who might at any moment leave you and return to a life of crime."

"Would you?" said Laura, her voice cracking.

He groaned. "Laura, that's not what I meant!"

The flight continued. Laura kept glancing at Steele, trying to work out what he was thinking. After another long and painful silence he said, "I'm probably never going to know who I am."

"I know." she said.

"So this is all you get. No name, no history, just me. I'll never be William Westfield."

"It doesn't matter." she said.

"Of course it matters. All along, you've wanted more than I could tell you. Now we both have to accept that I'll never be able to give you more. Pity I wasn't an earl's son, isn't it?"

That felt like an accusation to her. She hated the fact that he thought she would prefer him if he had a title. "It's a pity you still don't know who your father was." she said.

"Probably someone worthless. We know he stole a watch."

"We don't know that. We don't know anything." she said. She took his hand. "Look, it always worried me when I thought you weren't telling me things. Now I know you don't know those things, it's not such a problem."

"I barely exist." he said.

"You exist in LA. You're Remington Steele."

"Were you tempted to sleep with William Westfield?"

"I had no intention of sleeping with him. I can't even imagine sleeping with him." said Laura.

"Can you imagine sleeping with me?"

"You don't need to ask that." she said.

"You never answer the question I ask." he said.

"Yes, I can imagine it. I want it to happen."

"Then why hasn't it? How many Westfields do you need to dally with before you decide?"

"I'm not the only one who ... "

"No, you're not." he said, "But if we're ever going to get together, we have to stop running away; both of us."

"I know, but it's not easy."

"No, it's not. And maybe it's not worth it. Do we really want to pursue this, knowing that it's unlikely to get any easier?"

"I take it you don't?" she said.

"Do you?"

"I don't want you to feel any kind of obligation." she said carefully.

"Damn it, Laura, tell me what you feel!"

"What do you feel?" she said.

They looked at each other. Slowly, he smiled. She smiled too, realising that they were both so determined not to be vulnerable that neither would say what crackled in the air between them, but that didn't mean that it wasn't there.

"Laura," he said, "We don't have a chance."

"We're hopeless." she said.

"If we had any sense, we'd part company at the airport."

"Thank goodness neither of us is cursed with sense." she said.

"Thank goodness." he said.

Mildred's voice rose from behind. "For the benefit of those not in on the code, does this mean you're still together?"

"Well, we've never been_ together _together." said Laura.

"But we're still going to be ... " Steele hesitated.

"Partners." said Laura.

"You think you could kiss now? For me?" said Mildred.

"Employee morale is so important." said Steele to Laura.

"I do so agree, Mr Steele." said Laura.

They kissed, to the great relief of all three. Laura looked down and saw that she was still holding Steele's hand. "I won't send you away again." she said.

"Good." he said, "Because I don't think I'd go."

_The End._


End file.
